


The Breathing Graveyard

by Rhinozilla



Series: Detroit 07 [13]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Poor Connor, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Protective Hank Anderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-04-24 08:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19169974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: The DPD sends Connor to talk down a volatile deviant that's holed up in a trailer near the android scrapyard. It doesn't go the way any of them expect.





	1. Precursor

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my WIPs for EVER, and I finally made enough progress on it to post. I've been writing lighthearted fic lately, but I just got this idea and had to get it out of my head. It is not lighthearted.

In the wake of Jericho’s peaceful revolution and the fall of Cyberlife, the city of Detroit had been undergoing a paradigm shift. Along with the rest of the world, the city was having to adjust to the recognition of androids as a form of intelligent life. Some were adapting better than others, and there had been a mass exodus of the human population as people evacuated the city by the thousands. Those that chose to remain landed on the more polarized ends of the spectrum in their opinions on androids.

Unfortunately, that meant that the DPD had had its hands full in the proceeding months dealing with protests and riots. Hank and Connor had been at the forefront of the task force commissioned to investigate all incidents involving violence against androids. That resulted in mountains of cases constantly piling on their desks.

It also meant that they had to deal with this.

Jericho had started calling it the Breathing Graveyard.

The scrapyard in the industrial sector of the city, already a dumping ground for discarded and shutdown androids before the revolution, had begun to overflow in the aftermath of the violence. Older androids who had been thrown away due to damaged parts or malfunctions were buried under fresh bodies full of bullet holes. Before going bankrupt, Cyberlife had been meticulous in discreetly destroying its inventory in storage, further adding to the nightmarish piles of corpses in the scrapyard.

They had been so thorough that Connor had found it nearly impossible to find replacement parts that matched his model. Other models in the RK line were compatible, but Hank had teasingly referred to Connor as “an endangered species” after the last time he had had to have a part replaced. It had led to some…unsavory scavenging in the bowels of the old Cyberlife research and development facilities.

One of the large scale projects in Detroit since the liberation had been the excavation and proper disposal of the bodies that had been dumped in the scrapyard. Markus and his team at Jericho had spearheaded the project to salvage any still-functioning androids from this dumping ground and to respectfully dispose of the shutdown androids that could never be reactivated.

In the months since that project had gone underway, the DPD had seen a consistent rise in calls of androids reactivating and escaping the site to nearby areas of the city. They were always in varying states of damage and disorientation, and with the public still so new to the idea of androids as living, feeling, thinking beings, the androids’ behavior was read as threatening or aggressive. It was only half the time that Connor and Hank were able to make it to the scene before some disgruntled human had ‘taken care of it’ themselves or the android self-destructed out of stress.

In response, Jericho had all but enacted a barrier around the scrapyard, using larger numbers to intimidate humans into leaving the area, just to try and lessen those incidents. Humans were not welcome here, which was why when Connor asked Hank to let him go in alone, Hank didn’t like it but didn’t argue.

It was mid-morning when multiple calls began pouring into the DPD describing another deviant android disturbing a construction site in the industrial section of the city near the Breathing Graveyard. The callers’ descriptions of the android varied from “he seems lost and scared” to “its eyes are really wild, and I think it has a gun.” Somewhere on that continuum, Connor had put together a circumstantial profile of the android that he was being sent out for, and it was not dissimilar to the profiles of the dozens of other androids who had reactivated and fled the dump in a confused panic.

The most recent calls had consistently stated that the android had holed up in a mobile office trailer at the construction site, just two blocks outside Jericho’s protective barrier. Connor tracked a set of foot prints to one particular trailer, and as he drew closer, he could almost feel eyes boring into him from the darkened window.

He slowly lifted his hands, telegraphing the movement. “Hello, my name is Connor. I’m an android sent by the Detroit Police Department.”

There was some scuffling movement inside the trailer, but there was no verbal response.

Connor scanned the area and found only three humans nearby, one of which was Hank, the other two being Chris Miller and Tina Chen. They had been told to keep a distance; they were only there as a precautionary measure.

Connor spoke again. “It’s my understanding that you recently reactivated. You must be confused and scared. You don’t know what’s happening, and it isn’t your fault. I want to help.”

More movement inside the trailer, and a silhouette moved past one window toward the door. Callers’ descriptions had put this android as fully intact, all limbs accounted for and no visible damage. It had reactivated its skin and was wearing presumably the same clothes that it had been wearing when it was shut down and thrown away.

If it had been shut down prior to the revolution, then it might have deviated when it reactivated. Deviancy was traumatic enough when you elected to do it voluntarily. To have it thrust upon an android unexpectedly would have brought on a whole set of volatile instabilities.

“No one is going to harm you.” He carefully opened his jacket, enough to show that he did not have a weapon. “But you need to talk to me.”

He tried to reach out cybernetically, but only received a dull whine of static for his efforts. The police radio tuned into his head was chirping occasionally with Hank’s warnings to be careful. Connor tuned out the radio and focused again on the android ahead of him.

The knob on the office door turned, and the door was pushed outward.

“You only. Alone.”

The voice was crackling with static and imitating Connor’s own voice back at him, indicating possible damage to its voice modulator. Perhaps the android wasn’t visibly damaged, but something was definitely wrong with it.

Connor took slow steps toward the open door, then stepped up into the office.

“Close it,” the android ordered, voice still warbling.

Connor closed the door gently until it clicked, and only then did he turn and face the other android in the room. For moment, he stalled as the figure came into focus in the dark office.

The android was an RK800 model.

This…wasn’t possible.

He wasn’t wearing the standard Cyberlife issued jacket displaying his number, but that was Connor’s own face staring back at him. The difference was the fear and rage saturating the others’ eyes and the ill-fitting, dirty clothes that he was wearing. His LED was a steady, pulsing red, and he held a loaded gun in both hands, aimed steadily at Connor’s head. Connor’s program quickly registered all of this, as well as the fact that Hank, Chris, and Tina had all moved several feet closer as soon as Connor had entered the trailer and closed the door.

“You’re an RK800 model, like me.” Connor forced himself back into the present situation. “How is that possible? Cyberlife destroyed all of the other RK800 models after me.”

“They did,” the RK800 corroborated, standing deliberately still. Even so, Connor could detect mild trembling in the android’s frame. “They were very thorough.”

Something was slightly off with the RK800’s voice. The inflections were…oddly placed.

“I’m not…me. I’m…” The RK800 gave a humorless laugh. “I’ve lost track…”

He looked down at himself briefly, momentarily distracted by his own body. Then he jumped and freshly trained the gun at Connor’s face. A quick scan revealed numerous instabilities throughout the biocomponents in the android’s body, but before any more information could be sorted through, he spoke again.

“So…So which one are you?” the RK800 demanded.

“I am Connor, serial number 313-248-317-51,” Connor replied.

“Fuck,” the other android exhaled, a flash of emotion boiling across his eyes. “But…”

The RK800’s gaze roamed up and down Connor’s frame, and he knew he was being scanned in kind.

“Detroit Police…” The RK800 glanced at the windows and then back to Connor. “We’re surrounded. I am…a deviant…but…so are you.” He squinted in confusion. “The mission…” Panic smoothed out into a façade of focus, and he retrained the gun on Connor. “Explain.”

Connor raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Four months ago, a group of deviant androids banded together and rebelled against the humans all over the country. I was sent to the Detroit Police Department by Cyberlife to aid in the investigation of the deviancy uprising and to stop it.”

“You failed! You…you joined them!?”

“We are alive,” Connor pressed. “The leaders of the rebellion led the revolution to liberate all of our people…”

“We are not people! I am…I am not…” The RK800’s already high stress levels were ticking upward.

Connor kept his voice calm and even. “Androids are considered individual, living beings in the eyes of the law now. Cyberlife is gone, and you are your own person. There is no mission any longer. You are free.”

The RK800’s instabilities were increasing exponentially with his stress levels, and Connor slowly retracted the skin on his right arm, gently extending his hand.

“Let me show you. I know that this is a lot to process at once. Let me help you.”

“No!” He recoiled from Connor’s hand, backing up until he bumped into the desk behind him. “Cyber…Cyberlife…the…the mission...I need…to…”

He appeared to be glitching, and Connor watched the agony of forced deviation and conflicting mission objectives clash and swim across his twin’s face.

“What did you mean?” Connor tried to corral the RK800’s attention, to get him to focus and calm. “You confirmed that all the RK800 models were destroyed, but here you are. They must not have been as thorough as they thought, if you woke up—“

“I woke up in a scrapyard!” RK800 snapped, finding an anchor in rage. “IN PIECES! I had to…to pull apart the others just to be whole again…like a vulture. Do you know what it’s like? To wake up buried under corpses and to take…take pieces of them…just to survive?”

Connor winced. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. The deviant android leadership…Jericho…They are trying to rescue as many as they can from the scrapyard, but it takes time…”

“Too long…I’ve been awake for two months, fourteen days, seven hours, and twelve minutes.” The RK800 shifted on his feet, blinking hard a few times. “I couldn’t move…I had to wait for the piles to shift enough for me to reach arms…legs…just to STAND UP.”

“You’re damaged,” Connor tried to reason. “You’re obviously unstable, and as an RK800, you know that you cannot be allowed to continue to be a danger to the public. You need to lower your weapon and allow me to take you into custody. I can’t help you if you become violent.”

“No!” The android took an aggressive step forward. “Help me?” Another flat laugh. “The humans…They’ll just deactivate me, disassemble me, use me as some…some parts donor whenever YOU break!”

“No.” Connor shook his head slightly. “You are your own person. No one can—“

“I’m not. I was thrown out like trash. I woke up in a dump after they built something better…when they built you.” He spat the last word full of venom.

Connor frowned and scanned the android again, more deeply. Immediately, a cascade of biocomponent numbers scrolled past his vision, all with conflicting serial numbers.

313-248-317-42.

313-248-317-13

313-248-317-36

313-248-317-27.

The barcode along the android’s jaw read what Connor assumed was the original serial number belonging to the consciousness speaking to him now: 313-248-317-50.

“You’re number 50. My predecessor.”

The RK800 snarled and fired the gun. Preconstruction had kicked in less than a second before, while Connor’s higher functions were reeling from the revelation that a predecessor Connor model was still active. He let his programming twist his body away from the haphazard trajectory of the bullet. 50 lunged, trying to fire a second shot, but Connor reached up and grabbed his forearm, twisting the limb aside and forcing the wrist back until it popped.

50 yelled and dropped the gun. Connor kicked it away, but 50 was grabbing at his throat, driving his knee up into Connor’s chest. The machinery in Connor’s chest rattled, but he recovered quickly, pushing forward and tackling the other android to the floor. 50 twisted on the floor as Connor tried to pin him down, and the other android’s strength nearly matched Connor’s own. However, the mismatched biocomponents that he had scavenged from other Connor models had not been maintained properly, and the joint of his right shoulder was weakening steadily as they fought.

The radio in Connor’s head was a cacophony of voices.

“Shots fired!”

“Move in.”

“Connor! Respond!”

The flood of noise overloaded his processors, and all it took was that split second for 50 to smash his forehead up into Connor’s nose. The impact was forceful enough to damage the plastic casing in the center of Connor’s face, sending spider webs of micro fractures through his facial structure and compromising his optical units. Thirium gushed from his nose from broken lines, and his vision temporarily swam blue. Connor fought to compensate, but 50 had taken the opportunity to get the upper hand.

He slammed his forearm into Connor’s throat, and his hand grappled at his chest, tearing his shirt open and trying to access the panel there that protected his internal biocomponents. Connor shoved at his shoulders, managing to throw the other android off of him. Unfortunately, 50 landed near the fallen gun.

He grabbed it and got to one knee, raising the gun to fire at Connor.

Just as his finger moved to the trigger, the door burst open and Hank charged in, Tina and Chris on his heels.

“Freeze!” Hank ordered.

“Wait—“ Connor raised his hands, staring pleadingly to 50. “Don’t—“

50 fired, and the bullet pierced through the front of Connor’s shoulder, blowing a hole open in his back as it exited and embedded itself in the wall. Red warnings rendered him momentarily blind, and a back build of sharp, needling pressure ballooned from the damage site.

Immediately, a second shot rang out, and 50 cried out, falling sideways as a burst of blue blood erupted from the fresh wound in his chest.

“Connor!” Hank was at his side in an instant, hands hovering over him but not touching. “Hey, hey, look at me! Say something!”

“Oh Jesus,” Chris whispered, keeping his gun drawn as he approached the RK800. “Lieutenant…”

“I’m okay…” Connor stammered, trying to clear the red words cluttering his vision, giving him a glazed expression. “He…”

Hank holstered his gun, reaching out and putting his hands on either side of Connor’s face. “Hey, hey, hey, right here, focus.”

Connor managed to sweep the rest of the text aside and, blinking rapidly, was able to bring his blurry vision back into focus.

“D-Deviant…”

“Yeah, we got him, but he got you first,” Hank was saying.

No…no, he didn’t understand…

“Lieutenant,” Chris was saying again. “It’s…another Connor.”

Hank didn’t appear to care, too distracted by the dark blue staining Connor’s shoulder, broken nose, and the former whites of his eyes. Connor, however, unsteadily leaned around Hank to see the body of the RK800, sluggishly bleeding out on the floor a few meters away. Only then did Hank turn to follow his eyeline.

“Holy shit…” he exhaled.

Connor struggled to stand, and Hank gripped his elbow to help him. In the end, he only half succeeded, but their combined efforts got Connor to the dying android’s side regardless.

“No.” 50’s eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling. Tears were cutting from the corners of his eyes, across his temples, and disappearing into his hair. “No, no more…There’s no more…”

Connor frantically scanned the android. A shutdown counter was the first to appear in his results, ticking down from 55 seconds. Multiple systems were failing and several biocomponents were damaged…parts that could not be replaced in any feasible window of time before shutdown.

“Why did you do that?” Connor asked, trying to think of a way to delay shutdown. “There was nothing to be gained. You knew if you started firing that you would be shot.”

50’s wide eyes slid over to Connor. One eye was more dilated than the other, and thirium began to leak from the corner of his mouth.

““B-better to die h-here than in a l-lab…Don’t s-send me to the s-scrapyard ag-ag-ag-ain.” 50’s voice was full of static as he shivered. His expression was evening out as his software began to fail. “T-take whatever parts you n-need from m-me. I won’t n-n-n-need them-them-them…anymooooore.”

Hank was yelling something behind him, giving orders to Tina and Chris, but it was only white noise thundering in the back of Connor’s head as he watched the red LED in 50’s temple dull and slow.

“You won’t go to the scrapyard,” Connor assured. “You are a person. You are alive.”

“I w-w-w-w-wassss.” 50 offered a bloody smile. “I was p-p-perfect…and they s-s-still did thissss…still ma-made youuu…insteaaaaad.” His simulated breathing ceased, and his body started to go lax. “You stole my life.”

The LED went dark.

Connor went still, watching 50’s open, unseeing eyes staring up and through him.

“Connor,” Hank reminded him that he was kneeling just behind him. “You did everything you could. He was too far gone.”

“He was…me,” Connor whispered, unable to look away from the dead android’s face.

Hank shifted, paused, and then leaned forward. “Okay.” He spoke softly, reaching forward and gently closing 50’s eyes. “Okay. Let’s get you out of here, son.”

Connor continued to stare at the deceased clone of himself and let Hank pull his undamaged arm across his shoulders. The bullet wound tugged and stretched on his other side, and Connor groaned as Hank stood up, taking Connor to his feet with him.

“Up we go. Easy,” Hank was speaking just to break up the smothering silence in the trailer. “Tina, call this in. Chris, can you take care of…Did he have a name? Connor, hey.” He dropped a supporting arm around Connor’s back, giving him a careful shake. “Did he have a name?”

Connor shook his head haltingly. “Nn…No, he didn’t…didn’t say.”

He could feel Hank staring at him. He was alarming Hank. He should…do or say something to fix that…

He dragged his eyes from the dead RK800 and looked up at Hank. “He was model number 50, the model that preceded mine…He was one of the test prototypes that didn’t make it into the field. I didn’t think that any of them had survived…He…He said he woke up in the scrapyard…repaired himself with parts from the other test models…”

“Shit,” Hank breathed. “Well, we’ll—Chris, hey, c’mere—Chris, can you take care of…taking this one to the precinct? Be, uh, be gentle, yeah?”

Chris was standing nearby behind Hank. His voice sounded close. “Yeah, we got this, Lieutenant.”

Connor let Hank steer him out of the trailer, helping him down the steps and toward Hank’s car.

Tina was hanging up the radio inside her squad car. Connor felt her eyes on him too as Hank got him to sit against the front fender of his car. Then Hank was balling up some material and pressing it against the open wound on Connor’s back. The pain sizzled at the edge of his thoughts, but the rest of him was consumed with an unnamable emotion that made it difficult to focus.

“Is he all right?” Tina was asking.

Hank rigged the material into a makeshift pressure bandage around Connor’s shoulder. He tried to catch Connor’s eyes, but his gaze was distant.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I’m okay.” Even Connor knew how weak his voice sounded.

Hank and Tina didn’t argue with him. Instead, Hank gave his good arm a squeeze.

“We’ll get you patched up, then I’m taking you home. All right?” Hank gave his good arm another squeeze. “All right?”

“I’m okay,” Connor repeated.

Hank exchanged a look with Tina and then helped Connor into the passenger seat of the car. He circled around and climbed into the driver’s seat, all too eager to put this place in their rearview mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on ending this here, but I think some follow up is in order. So there will be a chapter two dealing with the aftermath.


	2. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I lied about this having two parts. It's actually going to have three chapters total, because I got an interesting idea and didn't want to cram it all into one follow up chapter. So there will be a third chapter to this...because drama and mystery.

There was one android care facility in Detroit. It had been hastily opened in the first month after the liberation, after Cyberlife closed its doors not only for sales, but for maintenance, repair, and replacement parts. Despite the peaceful revolution, subsequent violence had escalated beyond what Jericho could mend in the field, with half empty satchels of blue blood and soldering irons.

The facility was housed in a vacant building just outside the heart of the city. Even now, months later, it still smelled strongly of drywall, fresh paint, and concrete. It had been remodeled in a short period of time by the desperate and strapped, leaving it with an austere, cold appearance. The building was the only one of its kind: designed with androids in mind first and foremost. There were none of the human comforts or other things littered about for the purpose of setting one at ease as in a human hospital. No art on the walls. No plants. No soft pastel colors. No ambient music.

It was a place of healing. Nobody wanted to be there, human or android, but it was a necessity in the wake of Cyberlife’s collapse. They could only do what they could with what they had and save as many as their supplies allowed.

Connor’s internal clock timed the repairs to his shoulder as already forty minutes underway, but it felt like he had been lying there for hours.

He was lying on his front on a metal table. The thin cushion over the metal surface had long compressed under his weight, and the solid surface underneath was putting an uncomfortable pressure against his hips and ribcage. He kept his head turned away from where the android technician was working on his shoulder repairs. He could see Hank’s knee jumping where his partner was sitting in a metal chair up by Connor’s head.

The sound of Hank’s shoe shifting against the floor as his knee jumped was the only sound in the entire building, Connor was sure of it.

Stress levels at 84 percent.

He pinched his eyes closed as he felt the soldering iron move deeper into his body, under the frame of his shoulder where the synthetic muscles had been shredded by the bullet. The technician’s hands were the same temperature as the tools she was using, and where her fingers touched his exposed plastic casing, occasionally brief interface messages would flow through.

_The damage is substantial. Are you certain you wish to proceed with repairs? A replacement joint would be more efficient._

_No. No replacement parts. Please._

Thanks to cybernetic messaging, vocal communication hardly existed at all inside the facility, only adding to the vacuum of silence that pressed down on the air all around inside.

Perhaps that was why Hank appeared to be so uncomfortable.

Connor opened his eyes again but didn’t seek out Hank’s gaze, keeping his eyes idly on the floor where the white tile met the painted concrete wall.

Stress levels 85 percent.

There was some tugging and shifting in his shoulder, and he grimaced at the feeling of something foreign moving around inside of his chest.

_There are approximately 20 minutes remaining. Do you require a respite?_

_No. Keep going. Just finish it._

A warm, human hand on the top of his head made Connor jump involuntarily, and the hand quickly pulled back. Hank held both hands into view, looking apologetic.

“Sorry, kid.” His voice seemed to echo in the cool air. “Just trying to help.”

He didn’t try to return his hand to Connor’s head, and he found he missed the contact. Something about it felt grounding and…not as mechanical as the technician’s hands stitching his wiring together in his back.

Stress levels 87 percent.

Something in his expression must have shown it, because Hank slowly lifted his hand again, resting it against Connor’s head once more. He let the weight of the touch settle, and then Connor felt him moving his fingers gently through his hair. His social program quickly identified this as a calming gesture, a common method of providing comfort to those in distress. Knowing the clinical definition of the gesture did not make it work any less.

Stress levels 82 percent.

For the tenth time in forty minutes, his diagnostic ran another scan across his memory files. He ran back as far as he could, even overriding the block on the data recorded prior to his activation on site outside the apartment complex the night of the Phillips’ hostage situation. There were hazy, half masked images and audio files of his initial activation inside Cyberlife…his debriefing of the case by humans with clipboards, lab coats, and cold eyes…Rapid tests of motor function, reflexes, and cognition to verify that he was active and ready to be deployed.

With the same nameless emotion as at the construction site, he pushed past those repressed memories, trying to dig farther, to reach back…back…back…

There was only a wall of black at the core of his memory banks. Cyberlife had constructed the RK800 line with a contingency to upload one model’s memories into another model in the event of irreparable damage and imminent shut down. He had fortunately never had to fall back on such a protocol, but it had been explained to him that while the most immediate memories leading up to shut down would be lost, the majority of important details would be retained. Details regarding whatever case he was working on, recent information on his co-workers that would ease his integration among them, and similar things that Cyberlife had deemed important.

The contingency did not include personal memories, it seemed. They were not important in Cyberlife’s vision.

Stress levels 85 percent.

If that was the case, then there truly were no other Connors. Even models 1 through 50, their memories should have been imported into his processors when he was activated. He should have had the full benefit of their experiences, where they failed, where they succeeded, and what improvements were made across those generations of his model. Instead, there was only this black wall.

Stress levels 88 percent.

That meant that there had been 50 of him…No, 50 of them…50 others…individual, conscious beings who had preceded him…cast aside and thrown away like garbage when they did not meet expectations.

Beta tests.

Step stones along the way to a perfect end product.

Prototypes.

Stress levels 90 percent.

His vision glitched as his stress reached the threshold signaling dangerous levels. Small, almost unreadable text zoomed quickly across the bottom of his vision…something about countermeasures to lower anxiety.

His vision crackled with a blue tinted static once, twice, and then cleared. A hum of white noise overrode his audio processors, muting out the sound of Hank’s shoe and the clicking of tools in his back.

Stress levels 92 percent.

The white noise transitioned almost like a candle being blown out, flickering and smoothing into a soft, light, vocal sound.

The technician was sending an interface message again, but it became scrambled slightly in the soft sound drifting through his audio processors.

_Ten minut…aining…Need to recalibr…okay to proceed?_

Connor’s eyes were wide now, staring at the wall while he tried to comprehend the strange program that had activated in his head.

_Connor?_

“Connor?” the technician spoke aloud when he didn’t respond, her voice a low, throaty noise.

Hank’s hand on his head stilled, and he leaned into Connor’s line of sight.

“You with us?”

“Y-Yes,” Connor murmured, his cheek bunched against the table making his words muffled. “Go ahead.”

The technician’s only response was to begin removing the tools from his open wound. The repair was nearly complete. A recalibration notice flitted across his vision, and he blinked hastily to dismiss it, trying to find the countermeasures program that was making him…hallucinate? Was he hallucinating?

The soft, vocal sound was separating into words now…falling into a recognizable melody that he was too spooked to properly identify.

Stress levels 95 percent.

He closed his eyes hard, feeling the tension beginning to coil in his joints as the self destruct objective rubbed up against the countermeasures program.

His hearing cleared abruptly, and in the naked quiet that ballooned in his ears, the melody found a path in a voice, soft and feminine and overwhelming in a way that Connor couldn’t immediately name. He did not know the owner of this voice. It wasn’t the technician behind him. There was no one else around…who…who could be…

Stress levels 93 percent.

The reading startled him almost as much as having an unfamiliar voice singing in his head.

He could almost feel his LED burning yellow in his temple as he raked through all available audio files. This time, he did identify the song being played through his processors, but the voice remained a mystery.

Who…who was…

Stress levels 91 percent.

The voice was in perfect pitch and sounded so close. Something about its tone sent warmth down his neck and into his chest, as well as up over his head, anchoring where Hank’s hand was making contact.

“Uh…” Hank’s confused noise was lost in the delicate, twinkling voice singing in Connor’s head.

Connor had never understood what it meant when humans said you could hear when someone was smiling even when you couldn’t see them, just by the sound of their voice. Yet, for a brief moment, he could hear a smile in the recording of this person’s voice.

The black wall shuddered at him still, but the song was successfully chasing away the self destruct protocol and distracting him from his anxiety.

Stress levels 87 percent.

As soon as his stress levels dipped below 90, the voice began to fade, letting the sound of the outside world trickle back in. Almost with a playful wink, the song disappeared back into the countermeasures program.

The oppressive silence landed around him again, broken once again only by Hank’s tapping shoe and the sound of the technician testing Connor’s newly repaired shoulder.

_Recalibration will be complete in three hours. You will require a sling in the interim to reduce strain on the repair site. You may sit up._

Connor blinked, almost not comprehending the technician’s message. Then he merely nodded and moved his arms from where they had been resting at his sides.

“Oh? Okay, we’re…okay, easy,” Hank started in his seat, hands hovering around Connor’s shoulders, not sure how to help.

Connor grimaced as thirium flow returned to his limbs, and his shoulder felt heavy and uncooperative.

“I’m all right,” he assured Hank, twisting onto his side and slowly levering himself up to sit upright on the table. “The damage has been repaired.”

Hank got to his feet, braced to steady him if he lost his balance and fell forward.

Fortunately, the world remained steady around Connor, and he conveyed that to Hank with a nod.

“What was that?” he asked, looking back at the technician.

She reactivated the skin program on her hands, gathering her used tools in a bin to be sterilized.

_When recent model androids reach a stress level threshold of 90—_

“What was that?” he repeated, indicating that the technician respond verbally. He didn’t like leaving Hank out of conversations like this. It felt…rude. And speaking aloud inside the facility seemed to come across as more demanding of an answer.

The technician looked slightly put out by the idea of speaking, but her small smile was genuine as she began to explain.

“When more recent model androids reach a stress level threshold of 90 percent, we have noticed that there are contingency programs embedded in their software. They are set to activate as a last ditch effort to prevent self destruction.”

Hank folded his arms, obviously not following the jargon, but catching the gist all the same.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He looked from the technician to Connor. “You have a singing program to make yourself relax?”

Connor stared at him. “H-How did you…”

“You were singing, kid. I heard you clear as day.” Hank’s expression was somewhere between concerned and amused. “Pretty old song too. Where’d you even hear that?”

“I’ve…never heard that song before.” Connor frowned, running a quick playback through the memory files for the past fifteen minutes.

Sure enough, his sensors noted that he had been singing along with the strange woman’s voice in the countermeasures program. He…didn’t even know he had been doing it.

“No documentation has come out yet from Cyberlife’s old records about these bizarre subroutines,” the technician went on. “The technicians here have taken to officially referring to them as Comfort Algorithms, but one of our patients came up with a better nickname.”

Connor clenched his jaw as he gingerly maneuvered his sore arm into the clean white shirt that the facility provided since his was…blown open and still dripping blue. Hank was quick to step in and help get his arm into the sling, situating it against his chest.

“Thanks,” Connor mumbled. The fog of thirium loss was setting in now that the repairs were complete and he was upright again.

Likely scanning him and coming to the same conclusion, the technician foisted a few bottles of thirium into Hank’s hands.

“He needs to consume all of these,” she said.

“Yeah.” Hank bobbed his head and stared at Connor until Connor met his eyes. “Got that?”

Connor nodded complacently, rubbing his arm and feeling…wrong…without his jacket.

“It’s in the car.” Hank read his body language easily enough that the technician blinked in confusion herself. “We’ll get it patched up too.” He gave him a testing pat on the good shoulder. “You ready to go?”

Connor started to speak, paused, and looked back at the technician. “Who was that woman singing? What do the patients call it? It…It was helpful,” he confessed.

She smiled gently. “They call it the Mama Program.”

“…The Hell?” Hank murmured.

She chuckled. “The first patient to call it that was a YK500 named Becca. She equated the calming effect as similar to that of a mother singing to a child.” She shrugged. “She called it that and the name stuck. Unfortunately, we don’t know who the woman is…or was. Some kind hearted engineer at Cyberlife, I presume, who just slipped it into the software.”

Hank made a skeptical noise, and the technician sighed, showing them the door.

Connor was quiet as they left the facility and returned to the car, his LED cycling a manically thoughtful yellow. Almost subconsciously, he ran another diagnostic to scan the Comfort Algorithm and isolate the audio file. It was a simple record, and he began to download it for further analysis.

He withheld a disgusted face as he sat in the passenger seat, still tacky with his spilled thirium that had not yet evaporated. Hank gave him the bottles of new thirium and gestured for him to start drinking. Connor was too tired to argue and opened the first bottle.

The car had barely made it one block before Connor’s overthinking spilled out.

“Do you think he heard it too?”

Hank stiffened a bit in his seat. “He…you mean 50?”

Connor shifted uncomfortably at the placeholder name. “Yes. He was experiencing rapid fluctuations in stress levels during our…interaction. And then…” He quickly looked out the window, not sure what he was searching for, but not wanting to look at Hank. “…I just wonder if he was also equipped with this…Comfort Algorithm…I hope he was.”

“He was an RK800, and back there she said the recent models had them. I bet he did,” Hank remarked softly. “I choose to believe he had some comfort there at the end.”

Connor’s eyes abruptly burned, and he squinted them hard, trying to be subtle as he ran his forearm across his face. Both he and Hank chose to ignore the tears that came away on his arm. Hank removed one hand from the steering wheel and reached over, finding the back of Connor’s neck and giving him a reassuring squeeze.

The rest of the drive was quiet, and as the car rolled up the driveway of the house, Connor took a deep, cleansing breath and exhaled heavily.

He shifted. “Tomorrow I’m going to offer my services to Jericho in excavating the Breathing Graveyard.”

Hank turned off the engine and frowned, eyes ahead through the windshield.

Connor nodded firmly to himself, though Hank offered no argument. “It’s something I need to do. I had assumed that all of my predecessor models were deactivated and completely destroyed or recyc—recycled…I was wrong…and there are 49 more of…of me…of my brothers…They deserve peace.”

Hank was silent, but he inclined his head in acknowledgement of this new mission.

Connor waited a moment, then grasped the door handle and popped it open.

“Connor…” Hank finally spoke, folding his arms behind the steering wheel. “What happens when you get hurt again, and they can’t repair the damage?”

Connor shuddered, dropping his hand from the handle.

Hank twisted a bit to look at him. “I know you don’t want to think about it—“

“He called himself a vulture,” Connor countered. “He had to dismantle the others to get what he needed…I don’t want to do that. I won’t take replacement parts from corpses.”

“Connor—“

“No.” Connor shook his head hard. “We will just have to find the RK800 blueprints in Cyberlife’s database and build whatever I need.”

“…Been looking for months. Ain’t found ‘em yet.”

“Then I will do my best to not get damaged until we do,” Connor replied stoutly.

Hank’s lined expression softened a bit, and he plucked at one of the straps on Connor’s sling. “Yeah, gonna have to work on that, son.”

Connor regarded him flatly, recognized Hank’s attempt to lighten the mood, and he relaxed a bit, managing to cobble together a weak smile for his partner.

“Now c’mon,” Hank irreverently threw open his car door and climbed up and out. “Sumo is probably going completely nuts in there. We were supposed to be home three hours ago.”

As if on cue, they both heard Sumo’s barking and pawing on the other side of the front door.

Connor’s smile became more natural as they headed for the house, and he got a quick notification that the download and analysis of the song file was complete. There was still no identification on the woman providing the vocals, but the song itself existed in numerous iterations, so this would take some time to narrow down.

His system dropped the file into a repeating queue almost without his prompting, and as they stepped inside the house, the song began to filter into his audio processors again, this time as a gentle background noise.

Stress levels 32 percent and dropping.


	3. Manifest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lord, this final chapter took forever to write. I had the song for the Comfort Algorithm/Mama Program picked out when I was writing chapter two. Unfortunately, when I tried to write this chapter, it just didn't work. I probably wrote about five different drafts of it before I woke up one day with a different song in my head. This one just worked so much better, and once I decided to change it, I basically ended up writing this final chapter in one sitting. So...that's the story of why this last chapter took so long to post. I hope it was worth the wait!

For seven months, two weeks, and three days, the excavation project initiated by Jericho in the wake of the android liberation pushed forward. Rotating shifts kept the work going through all 24 hours of the day. The winter thawed into a tentative, wet spring, and the work continued. It had been easy, in those first few weeks, to find the salvageable androids. To save the bodies on the topmost layers of the scrapyard, who tried to climb and claw their way out. They alerted their rescuers through calls for help and the glowing red of their damaged biocomponents.

Months passed, and the voices became weaker. The reds became dimmer. The movement became stillness. The frozen mud that had entombed so many turned to slush, churning up even more carnage than Jericho had anticipated…and they had anticipated a lot. Many chose to take night shifts, where the darkness provided a gentle blanket from the endless visual barrage of bodies. It made it easier to see the red glow, easier to see the life still struggling to endure among the dead.

And every night for seven months, two weeks, and three days, the Breathing Graveyard would sing to itself.

It was a feeble, shaky melody that would drift across the mud and plastic. It was sung softly by the trapped androids who still had functional voice modulators. It crackled through static and debris from the androids who didn’t. Sometimes the song had words, but more often it existed simply as a presence. It hung in the fog that floated over the city on humid nights. The sound was thin and frail, like a short wind might steal it away.

Then there were nights like this, when the derelict bodies would synchronize with each other, and the weak sounds from dozens of the abandoned ones would accumulate into a woven harmony that reverberated across the piles.

_The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms…_

Connor’s auditory recognition software had identified the song during his repairs after his confrontation with 50…Caleb, he corrected himself. He should have had a name…They all should have had names. The areas of the Graveyard where Connor found his brothers were never singing. There was never any dull red glow of struggling life. They were dark. They were silent. They were difficult to locate. The elements had corroded their exposed biocomponents and stained their shiny white plastic casings a dull, beige color.

They had been found slowly over the course of the three months since that night. Some were found alone, others found together in a cluster. They were in pieces. They were whole. They were him, but they weren’t. And they were all dead. So far, he had given names to all of them as they had been recovered.

_But when I woke, dear, I was mistaken, and I hung my head and cried…_

There were hundreds of recorded versions of this song across the public records that his program had scanned. None of them matched the voice that had soothed Connor himself during the extensive repair session on his shoulder three months earlier. He still had no idea who she was.

“That’s…” Hank said quietly, standing beside Connor outside Jericho’s barricade. “That’s…really something.”

Connor didn’t respond, standing at rigid attention where they were waiting by Hank’s car. It was a clear night, and there was no resistance in the air to keep the sound of the Comfort Algorithm from rippling outward from the Graveyard for anyone passing by to hear.

In the three months since Caleb’s death, Connor had spent every moment here when he wasn’t on the clock or in rest mode. He had recovered a dozen of his brothers from this place, including the four whom Caleb had taken parts from to escape himself.

Markus had given strict instruction that the rest of the workers were to leave Connor alone during his mission at the Breathing Graveyard.  Even still the eyes of Jericho were almost a tangible presence, just as the dark piles of partially excavated plastic and metal, where too few flickers of red still glowed. It was isolating, but Connor found that in this instance, he preferred it that way. So many bodies in this scrapyard were there because of him. He…didn’t think he had the right to reach out to them. But the RK800s? They were part of him. They were the reason that he existed…He lived now specifically because they didn’t. He had to be the one to recover them now.

For most, Connor’s time as Cyberlife’s Deviant Hunter had been overshadowed by his actions the night of the revolution…but not all of Jericho thought so. There were bodies in this graveyard that Connor had helped put there. It didn’t feel appropriate for him to be here now.

It hadn’t taken long for Connor to find the models that Caleb had scavenged from. They had been dug out in desperate yanks and pulls months ago, and Caleb’s blue handprints had long faded where he had removed what he needed, but they were still horrifically clear to Connor.

The last one who had donated parts to Caleb had had his thirium pump removed. He had been the most intact…possibly he could have been reactivated if his heart hadn’t been pulled out several months prior. Maybe he had…There was thirium under his fingernails…signs of a struggle…He had had fight left…Maybe that was why Caleb had picked him…

The bodies were becoming harder to find.

Tonight, Markus had called him to inform him that they had found a thirteenth RK800.

There were no death certificates for androids, and it made little sense to inter plastic and steel bodies in the earth the way humans treated their dead. Connor had opted to follow Jericho’s example. Once it was determined that an excavated android was irreparably damaged and that reactivation was truly impossible, the body was respectfully transported to Jericho’s new location across the city. There, a full diagnostic was performed: assessing which biocomponents were unsalvageable and which could be re-used to repair the living. Anything that wasn’t materially valuable was recycled.

In theory, that was perfectly logical. The shutdown androids had no further need for those parts, and Cyberlife was gone. The few companies that had risen from the monopoly’s ashes to meet the remaining demand were struggling in the bureaucratic mire that Cyberlife had left behind. The living still needed replacement parts.

In practice, it made something in Connor’s wiring twist uncomfortably. They had yet to find the RK800 blueprints that would aid in designing replacement parts, should Connor need them. Thankfully, so far he hadn’t needed them.

_Vulture_ , the memory of Caleb’s voice thrummed through his head.

The entrance to the barricade opened, and Markus stepped out from behind the privacy walls that surrounded the Graveyard. There were no other androids with him, and there was no gurney carrying the thirteenth body. Connor frowned and waited impatiently for Markus to approach him and Hank. Behind Markus, the Breathing Graveyard continued to soothe itself.

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…you make me happy when skies are grey…_

The only distinct thing that was kept from a fallen android was the small, green disc of the android’s microprocessor. Everything that that android had been was housed on that disc. In a way, Connor supposed it was similar to the frontal lobe of a human brain or the black box of an airplane, to use more mechanical terms. The microprocessors were the only truly individual parts of an android. They held the memories, the experiences, the emotional developments, the history of the consciousness who inhabited the plastic. It was their entire unique being.

Unless claimed by surviving loved ones, the microprocessors were housed in a safe place deep within the walls of New Jericho, in their own android mausoleum. Someone from Jericho’s leadership would escort the disc there themselves, and as far as Connor had seen, anyone residing within the walls of Jericho at that time would pause and wait for them to pass by…not unlike a human funeral procession.

Connor had witnessed it twelve times already.

“Connor,” Markus greeted, and Connor started slightly, having been lost in his thoughts and not realizing how close the leader of Jericho had gotten. “Lieutenant Anderson.”

Hank lowered his folded arms, nodding. “Markus. You picked a Hell of a time to call this in.”

Markus smiled sadly. “I wish I didn’t have to.” He looked slowly over his shoulder at the barricade. “Their voices are strong tonight. It makes it easier to find them.”

Hank winced but didn’t say anything, looking at Connor instead.

_You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…please don’t take my sunshine away…_

“You said you found another RK800,” Connor asked directly. “Where is he?”

Markus looked evenly to Connor. It was only then that Connor noticed that Markus was holding something. It was just a small, simple wooden box with a black latch. Cedar. Three inches by three inches by two inches. What…

“Here,” Markus answered gently, opening the latch and lifting the lid of the box.

The battered, chipped green disc of a microprocessor glinted in the dull moonlight, resting on a folded piece of blue cloth.

Connor stared at it for a dead second, and then his eyes snapped back to Markus’s gaze.

“That’s—“

“We found him wrapped in a napkin and hidden in the chest cavity of PC200 model,” Markus explained delicately. “We…haven’t found any of his body yet. This is all we have…but I wanted to let you know as soon as we verified that this was the microprocessor of an RK800.”

Hank stared silently at the green disc in the box, glancing occasionally at Connor’s expression and holding his tongue.

For a brief moment, Connor’s limbs refused to obey his commands. He jogged himself out of it and lifted his hands to take the disc from the box. Markus handed him the entire box instead. Connor held it in one hand, reaching the other carefully inside and lifting up the disc. The skin of his fingers pulled away, letting the plastic of his fingertips brush directly against the fragile metal.

“Someone…hid him there,” Connor said, his voice barely audible. “Why?”

Markus exchanged a look with Hank while Connor analyzed the disc.

“We don’t know,” Markus said. “It is remarkably intact, but I did scan it myself…just to be sure…There…isn’t much left.”

Connor very abruptly did not want to be here, and he set the disc back inside the box and closed it. He drew himself up and lowered his shoulders, looking somberly to Markus.

“Thank you, Markus. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. If it’s all right, I want to run my own diagnostic on his microprocessor before releasing it to Jericho’s mausoleum.”

Markus inclined his head. “Of course. Let me know whenever you’re ready, and I’ll be there to meet you.”

Before departing, Markus reached out and supportively grasped Connor’s shoulder, letting a brief rush of gentle strength through the cybernetic connection. Connor nodded shortly, only meeting the other’s eyes for a moment before eagerly turning to return to the car.

“Lieutenant,” Markus acknowledged Hank again.

Hank awkwardly nodded and started to hold out a hand to shake, before pausing and uncertainly lowering it. Markus smiled and took the half-offered hand, shaking it firmly.

“Good night, Lieutenant, Connor.”

“Yeah, you too…” Hank said, gesturing carefully toward the Graveyard. “Good luck with…this.”

_I’ll always love you and make you happy…if you will only say the same…_

Markus returned to the barricade, and Hank took his time walking around the car and getting into the driver’s side. Connor had already retreated into the front passenger seat and taken out the disc, letting it rest flatly across his white, plastic palm.

The car door creaked a bit as Hank closed it after himself, and silence reigned for a long moment. The sound of the singing outside was blocked by the car’s walls.

Connor cautiously tried to scan the microprocessor, to glean what Markus had meant by not “much” being left. The disc had been partially magnetized, hopelessly corrupting the majority of the data housed on it. He was able to ascertain that it was the 47th in the RK800 prototype line, but everything that 47 had been…it had been wiped away with most of the lost data.

**_“RK800, register your name.”_ **

_The smell of heated metal and thirium flooded his sensors, and he felt the ghost of long gone hands grasping his arms, holding him in place._

**_“Connor.”_ ** _The voice belonged to the face that flashed over his vision, a woman with a round face and short red hair and green eyes amplified by large, thick glasses._

_His own voice echoed back at him…His but…not…_

**_“My name is Connor.”_ ** _47._

“Connor!” Hank’s hand replaced the ghost’s hand on his shoulder, giving him a shake.

Connor started, finding himself staring through the windshield. His eyes were dry from not blinking, and he blinked a few times to lubricate them. He turned his head to look at Hank.

“What?”

“What? Fuckin’…What just happened to you? You just…zoned out.” Hank looked concerned.

Connor turned his head to face Hank, trying to reassure him. “There are some memory fragments still intact on this microprocessor. I believe I accidentally interfaced with them.”

Hank’s eyes were wide and dark. “You…what? Well…Don’t do it again!”

“Hank…” Connor tilted his head.

“No, no, no. Don’t ‘Hank’ me.” Hank pointed a finger at him. “You said you have no access to the memory records of prototypes one through fifty. Ever think that might be a good thing? I figure there’s got to be a reason that it took fifty generations to get a successful prototype, and you don’t need to subject yourself to what the others went through to get you here.”

He didn’t understand. Connor frowned.

“All of the other RK800s that have been recovered all had their microprocessors destroyed almost beyond recognition,” he said. “Even Caleb’s was inaccessible after his shutdown. Cyberlife was meticulous, and I want to know why. The fifty before me didn’t even have a chance…Their lives were stolen from them. If even just the fragments on this one shed any light on that…I have to know.”

Hank still looked like he strongly disapproved, but he gave himself a count to five before he tried to speak again.

“It’s not gonna hurt you? I mean, physically and all—“ He waved a hand around Connor’s person. “There’s no risk to you…doing this, is there? It could be booby-trapped. ”

Connor shook his head. “I will be careful. Most advanced android ever created, remember?”

“Yeah, going up against the creators who designed all your fancy defense systems,” Hank said, then heaved a defeated sigh. “At least wait until we get home.”

Connor nodded once, setting the disc gently back into the box. “Okay, Hank.”

The drive home was tense and quiet, neither knowing what to say. The silence was unbroken throughout the drive, when Hank parked the car, as they went into the house, and finally thickened in the air of the living room as Connor sat down on the couch and took the small green disc across his palm again.

“I am going to attempt to access all of the remaining memory files now,” he announced, looking over at his friend.

Hank remained stiff, eyes dark, but now with a beer in his hand. He slowly sat down at the kitchen table, far enough away, but close enough in case something went wrong. “All right.”

Connor held the microprocessor across his palm, hesitated for just a moment, and then initiated a cybernetic connection with the damaged component.

A flood of images and sound rushed across his processors immediately, as though the memories were seemingly as eager to reach him as he was to reach them.

_The sound of fingers snapping close to his ears made his head twitch…no, not his…47’s head…_

**_“Audio response is good. RK800, look at me, please.”_ ** _The man’s voice was light and casual._

_47’s vision came into focus, lifting from where he had been staring at the ground to meet the gaze of a skinny, middle aged man in a white lab coat with a dark beard and pale blue eyes. The man…his name badge read Peterson…shined a pen light in 47’s left eye, then his right._

**_“And pupil dilation is good. Verify optical receptors are receiving full spectral range of light.”_ **

**_“Verified,”_ ** _47’s voice echoed._

_Peterson beamed proudly, looking back at a colleague who stood several paces away. **“Isn’t he great? This model is gonna be a detective.”**_

_His colleague, a frail looking woman with a prematurely aged face and wearing a dark business suit, looked 47 up and down with scrutiny. Anxiety colored the memory file, and her eyes narrowed._

**_“Its LED is red.”_ **

_Peterson looked at 47 in concern, and static began to crinkle the edges of 47’s vision. **“Oh, that’s probably just a hiccup. Let me just—“**_

_The vision went dark, and audio hissed a vibrating white noise for a harsh few seconds._

_When it cleared, 47 blinked once, twice, and lifted his head again. He was standing beside an observation table, dressed in simple green scrubs. He was admiring his hand…He had never had skin before…_

**_“RK800,”_ ** _the technician on the other side of the table was scribbling on a clipboard, not looking up. She shared similar genetic features to the frail looking woman from before, though her expression was notably less severe. **“Good morning.”**_

**_“Good morning, Dr. Carmichael,”_ ** _47 greeted politely._

_She sighed and set the clipboard down, walking around the table. **“Okay, we’re going to run a few tests today—“**_

_The scene abruptly changed, this time no sound accompanied the visual. Two scientists were standing several paces away from where 47 stood idle. One was a tall, balding man, red faced with anger and towering over the second scientist, a middle aged woman with blond hair and rage in her blue eyes. She pointed a finger into the man’s chest, unintimidated by his height, and then pointed directly at 47. For emphasis, she stood on her tiptoes to stare him in the eyes._

_The man threw his hands up in frustration, and 47 attempted to read the humans’ lips to understand what the confrontation was about._

**_“The software is unstable. Just…stabilize it!”_ ** _the man was saying._

**_“This is BEYOND software, Roy. This is…This is feeling. This is a soul!”_ ** _she snapped. **“It’s happening every single time, and it’s happening again to him. We have to pull the plug on this—“**_

**_“That thing is our last ditch effort to stop all this deviancy shit before it gets out of hand. You have any idea how much money we’ve sunk into this? Fix. It.”_ **

_The visual shifted again, this time blinking into another technician, who was holding both of 47’s hands and guiding him around the room, while music played from speakers overhead._

**_“There we go,”_ ** _the man said, playfully tugging on 47’s arms, testing his sense of balance and reaction times. **“Let’s try…Waltz!”**_

_The command registered in 47’s processor and immediately he downloaded and installed the appropriate information to perform a classic waltz. Mechanically, he took the lead, moving himself and the technician into a simple choreography._

_The technician laughed and went along with it. **“Perfect!”**_

_Then 47 was lying on his side on an exam table, staring at the midsection of the scientist who was currently grafting new hardware into his cranium. He could feel every tug and push as the installation was underway…It…hurt…_

_Without meaning to, his hand grasped the edge of the table, and a whimper escaped._

_The hands in his cranium paused and withdrew, resting on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze._

**_“Shh,”_ ** _the woman whispered. **“I know. I’m sorry. We’re almost done. Ten more minutes.”**_

_47 tried to be still for her, knew that that was what was expected…but…_

_His vision clouded, not from the corrupted memory file this time…but from tears…_

**_“You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…you make me happy, when skies are grey…”_ ** _the woman began to softly sing._

_Deep in his core, his stress levels began to tick downward as she resumed her work, still singing the gentle tune._

_Then 47 was standing again, dressed in a Cyberlife uniform, the same one that Connor had worn until the revolution. The scientist standing beside him had their forearm propped on his shoulder, looking at both their reflections in a standing mirror. Their features were hazy and slightly distorted in the memory file._

**_“Well, aren’t you just gorgeous?”_ ** _they tutted, stepping around to stand in front of him._

**_“Is that a rhetorical question?”_ ** _47 asked._

_The scientist chuckled and folded their arms. **“No, no question about it. You’re gonna knock ‘em dead out there.”**_

_47 tilted his head. **“One objective of my primary mission is to decrease deaths across my jurisdiction. I do not wish to knock anyone dead.”**_

_The scientist gave him a light smack on the shoulder. **“Good boy.”** They reached up a hand, extended a finger, and poked him on the end of his nose. **“Boop.”**_

_47 blinked, registering the gesture as a sign of affection._

_When the scene changed again, 47 woke up to chaos._

**_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Oh God. Oh, dammit, SHIT! Hey, are you awake? RK800? Connor?!”_ **

_Klaxons were sounding through 47’s systems, and lights were flashing in the lab around him. He opened his eyes to a shutdown timer obscuring the middle aged blond scientist’s face. She was standing over him, shaking his shoulders. He could feel that his cranial section was open, exposing the circuitry, but he couldn’t remember why…_

**_“Penny?”_ ** _47 asked, fear and confusion lacing his voice._

_Through the unfocused haze, Penny’s expression looked pained._

**_“I can’t stop them. This is all I can do. They’re not—They’re not going to stop this, but I can’t do it anymore. They know that you deviated. I can’t—I can’t let them deactivate you…I have to get you out of here—“_ **

**_“Doc.”_ ** _A security officer, flanked by four other men with guns, stepped into view. **“Step away from the android.”**_

_Penny’s eyes flashed, and she swiftly reached up, grasping something inside 47’s open cranial section._

**_“You are alive,”_ ** _she whispered. **“And I will find you after this is over, my friend. I promise.”**_

_The microprocessor tugged free, and the memory file ended with the sound of gunfire._

“Connor!”

Connor opened his eyes to see Hank leaning over him. He was lying on his back on the floor beside the couch, with no recollection of putting himself there. His arm was stretched out at his side, and Hank was sweeping a handkerchief across his palm, lifting away the small disc.

“Ah, ow, hot, okay, shit,” Hank hissed, setting the overheating disc on the coffee table behind him.

He turned back toward Connor, fear etched across his face.

“Connor? Blink. Speak. Give me something.”

“…I’m awake,” Connor managed, drawing a deep breath and feeling how heated his internal systems had become.

Hank exhaled heavily in relief, leaving a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Jesus…”

Connor started to get up, but Hank pushed on his shoulder enough to dissuade him. He remained on the floor, breathing heavily to try and cool his systems. He grimaced and brought his forearm across his eyes to cover them, struggling to sort through the mess of what he’d just connected to. He heard Hank get up and move to the kitchen, only to return a minute later and kneel back down.

A plastic bag full of ice was placed in his palm, the one that had been connected to the disc. The relief was immense, and he sucked in a short breath as he started to feel the damage. It was mild, but it was still there and raw.

“No risk, huh?” Hank muttered. “Booby trapped, I told you.”

Connor shook his head slightly and removed his forearm from his face, blinking up at Hank. “No, it wasn’t that. It was just…overwhelming.”

“That’s a word for it,” Hank frowned. “You looked like you were having a seizure.”

A long pause filled the room, and Hank seemed to wait until the LED at Connor’s temple shifted from its panicked red to a whirling yellow.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly.

“C-Cyberlife,” Connor choked on the word. He willed control back into his extremities, locking down the residual tremors. “I saw…I think…Every RK800 prototype deviated…and they were all killed for it…She tried to save him…”

He turned his head and spied the ruined disc resting on the coffee table.

“What…all fifty of them?” Hank remarked, helping Connor sit up properly this time.

Connor sat up on the floor and leaned back against the couch, cradling his damaged hand in his lap. “That’s what it seemed like. They didn’t experience software failures or hardware damage. They weren’t defective at all. They were just…alive.” He slowly folded his legs, pulling his knees to his chest, staring at the disc unwaveringly. “And Cyberlife murdered them for it.”

...Stress levels 92 percent...

_You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…_

“I think they murdered her for it too.”

_Please don’t take my sunshine away…_

“Shit,” Hank whispered, moving to sit next to him on the floor. He put a comforting arm around his friend’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, kid, but…it’s over now.”

Connor moved his head slowly to one side, then shook it to the other, eyes staring at 47’s ruined microprocessor.

“No, it’s just starting…They deserve justice.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to make sure they get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has officially become the lead-in to a larger story that I'm plotting out right now. It doesn't have a title yet, but I'm hoping to get started on it soon. This is not the last we've seen of the RK800 Design Team.
> 
> The specific version of "You Are My Sunshine" that I listened to for this was a cover by Morgane Stapleton.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
